It’s hard to imagine that a song recorded 31 years ago on an album full of classic hit songs can manage to crack Spotify’s Viral Top 50, but movies have a way of introducing old music to a newer, younger audience.
“Something in the Way”, the 12th track on Nirvana‘s second album, Nevermind, has seen an incredible resurgence thanks to Matt Reeves’ The Batman. It stands at number 33 on the Spotify US Viral Top 50, and for the first time ever, this B-side track has even charted Billboard. If you’re wondering how a great song like this can just be slept on for decades, you have to remember this track had to compete with “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” “Come as You Are,” “Lithium,” and “In Bloom.”
Originally written in 1990, Cobain envisioned the song with the full band in mind, but it wasn’t until he played the song acoustically that the band found the core sound of the track.
Reeves used Nirvana as an inspiration for the way he shaped this version of Bruce Wayne, seeing addiction as the connection between the rockstar and the superhero. Reeves told Esquire, “the truth is that he is a kind of drug addict. His drug is his addiction to this drive for revenge. He’s like a Batman Kurt Cobain.” It’s hard to not think of The Batman when listening to “Something in the Way;” the brooding tone and low melodic rhythm almost captures the feeling Reeves’ dark interpretation of Gotham gives off.
When Courtney Love was interviewed by the LA Times to celebrate the 30th anniversary of Nevermind, she called the track “one the greatest rock songs of all time.” She said, “The place he writes from is so emotionally desperate we all understand it.”
Rolling Stone put “Something in the Way” at number five when they ranked all 102 Nirvana songs.